Kartchner Caverns State Park and Tombstone in Arizona

Bonnie scheduled us for an overnight stay at St. Clair Winery near Deming, New Mexico on our way to Kartchner State Park in Arizona. The winery is a member of Harvest Hosts so we were given permission to camp out in their parking lot in exchange for drinking some wine and eating food. Not a bad deal for us since we tasted 6 different wines and enjoyed a delicious meatball sandwich and some soup for lunch. We spent almost 3 hours in the winery while talking with other RV’ers who had stopped there for the same purpose. Bonnie does a great job of getting us free overnight stays at unique ranches, farms, and wineries along our travel route. Here are a couple of photos from our overnight stop at St. Clair Winery:

Neat looking wine bottles

Inside St.Clair Winery

Our spot for the night. Notice the reflection in the Airstream. We just cleaned and waxed the day before!

Others with the same great idea!

The next day we arrived at Kartchner State Park. Bonnie had reserved camping for 7 days until Tuesday, February 6th but we were going to have to change sites multiple times. It is sometimes difficult for her to get us a campsite reservation because “snow birds” from northern states and Canadians grab RV sites many months in advance of their seasonal treks to stay warm each year. Luckily, we called a week prior to see if there had been any cancellations and bingo! Perfect timing. We actually snagged a primo site for the majority of our week long stay. The views from the campground and our site were amazing. Parks like this make up for the times we do land near the dumpsters. This was our first stop in Arizona and Kartchner is considered a “flagship” park within the entire system of state parks. Below are pics of the campground…

View as we drove to our campsite

Looking east from the campground to far off mountain ranges

The view from our site

View out our kitchen window

The biggest attraction is tours of Kartchner Caverns which is an amazing underground network of “living” caves. The caverns were discovered in 1974 when Gary Tenen and Randy Tufts found a narrow opening at the bottom of a sinkhole and had the courage to explore 2.5 miles of underground cave passages. They had discovered a rare “living cave” that hadn’t yet been spoiled by visits from too many people so they kept it a secret from the public for almost 24 years. Gary and Randy contacted the Kartchner family which owned the land and convinced them to preserve the large underground cave system for future generations. Mr. Kartchner, a rancher and science teacher, toured the amazing cavern and readily agreed to donate his land. Gary, Randy, and the Kartchners collaborated with the Arizona Parks Department to protect and preserve the cavern as a state park as it exists today. Here is a link to a short video about the discovery of this amazing natural wonder since we were not allowed to take any photos in the cavern:

Short video about Kartchner Caverns

The Whetstone Mountains surrounded our campsite and provided us with a gorgeous view of this part of the country. Kartchner was one of the nicest state parks we had visited so far and it had great RV sites with clean, modern bathroom/shower facilities. The park contained several well marked hiking trails so Bonnie and I ended up walking a 3 mile trail that wound through foothills of the nearby mountains in the park. We were amazed at the large variety of cactus, grasses, trees, and other plants that occupied this desert terrain. We didn’t see any rattlesnakes or other wildlife besides a few small birds. Here are a few pics from our first hike…

Cholla cactus with flower bud

Prickly pear cactus

Hills in Kartchner SP we hiked

See pic below

Bonnie’s pic of mountain ranges described in “The View” pic above

Good weather has been a major challenge for us since we left Charlotte and started heading west. The east coast part of our trip saw record highs and rain along with hurricanes. We have experienced record lows and more rain since leaving Florida. Daily temperatures in Arizona are about 15-20 degrees below the typical winter average of 70 degrees with lots of rainy days. The temperature dips below freezing on many nights and our propane furnace has been busy keeping us warm. I know we shouldn’t complain about anything but it is human nature to find something to be unhappy about and right now the weather is it !!! One positive side of the volatile weather is it has provided a variety of lighting and cloud formations which Bonnie has enjoyed when taking photos. Here are a few pics she took from our campsite at Kartchner State Park…

Sunny day (but cold!)

Clouds rolling in over the hills

Cloudy but beautiful day

Amazing sunset from our campsite

Another gorgeous sunset

Next, we drove to the nearby town of Tombstone which was located about 30 miles from Kartchner SP. This town is a big tourist destination because this is where a 30-second gunfight broke out between lawmen (Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Virgil Earp) and members of a loosely organized group of outlaws called the “Cowboys” (Billy Clairborne, Ike Clanton, Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury) on Wednesday, October 26, 1881. It is generally regarded as the most famous shootout in the history of the American Wild West. If you like John Wayne movies and stories about the “Old West” then Tombstone is the place for you. Bonnie does not particularly like “Old West” history but she sucked it up for the day and toured Tombstone with minimal smart-ass comments. Here is a Wikipedia link if you want to learn more about the famous gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunfight_at_the_O.K._Corral

We walked around downtown Tombstone and got a feel for what it must have felt like to live in a frontier mining town during that time period. We toured a great history museum at the Town Hall, ate lunch at Big Nose Kate’s saloon, visited the famous Bird Cage Theater, and paid $3 bucks each to walk through Boot Hill Cemetery outside of town. The cemetery contained the graves of outlaws and other unfortunates who had been shot, stabbed, or hanged. I had never paid money to enter a cemetery before and wasn’t happy about the fee but we soon realized that everything in a western tourist town like Tombstone costs something for admission. We walked down the hill from the cemetery to a burial monument for Jewish settlers and Native Americans who had also lived and died in Tombstone. This made us think about all of the tough people from different backgrounds who chose to carve out a future or simply survive in the American wild, wild West during the 1800’s. Below are some photos of Tombstone and Boot Hill cemetery:

Coronado National Forest was located right next to Kartchner State Park so we spent an afternoon hiking the Guindani Trail which was about 5 miles long with an elevation difference of approximately 1,000 feet along the path. Both of us found ourselves huffing and puffing our way across some parts of the trail due to the higher elevation and many loose rocks that littered our runway. This area was so beautiful and provided us with many opportunities to capture incredible desert mountain views as shown in the pics below:

Entry to forest from Kartchner SP

It is as tall as me! But sharper

working our way up the hills

View from near the top of the trail

We reached the top! The air felt thin

The valley view looking into the Coronado National Forest

Mountain views to the south from the trail

The trek back down on the other side (Me as the pack mule for additional water)

Almost back down

The sun finally made it out!

Next up, a brief stop in Tucson and another Harvest Host overnight stay…